The history of the Galaxy has got a little muddled, for a number of reasons: partly because those who are trying to keep track of it have got a little muddled, but also because some very muddling things have been happening anyway. (from the first line)

It's not just a trilogy any more. In the fifth book of this popular series, Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, and immediately all hell breaks loose. In short, it's up to him to save the world from total multi-dimensional obliteration, the Guide from a hostile alien takeover, and the daughter he never knew he had, from herself. A tall order, to say the least. And one he's really not up to, thank you very much."Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist....He is anything but harmless."THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

From the Publisher:Douglas Adams is back with the amazing, logic-defying, but-why-stop-now fifth novel in the Hitchhiker Trilogy. Here is the epic story of Random, who sets out on a transgalactic quest to find the planet of her ancestors. Line drawings.Adams is back with the amazing, unprecedented, logic-defying, but-why-stop-now fifth novel in the Hitchhiker Trilogy. Random, the daughter of Arthur Dent, has grown up on a remote world at the edge of the universe. Now she sets out on a transgalactic quest to find the planet of her ancestors. . . .

Annotation:The fifth and final volume in the humorous SF series that began with THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY is somewhat darker than its predecessors. The Earthman Arthur Dent spends years selling genetic material in exchange for travel to various parallel universes in search of somewhere vaguely resembling his home planet. When he finally settles (actually, crash lands) on a backwater planet, his pleasant new career as tribal sandwich-maker is interrupted by the arrival of his daughter, Random--the result of those many, many sales of his DNA. Meanwhile, Arthur's friend Ford Prefect discovers that the happy-go-lucky executives of his employer, the publishers of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, have been replaced by a frighteningly grim and worryingly familiar new management team. His plot to disturb their business plan puts him once again into Arthur's path...with devastating results.

Author Bio

Douglas Adams

The award-winning author of the definitive guide to slogging around in outer space, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, was born and raised in Cambridge, England. While studying English at St. John's College, Cambridge, Adams began to write, perform in, and direct stage plays. Through this experience he got a job as a script supervisor on the influential cult TV show, DR. WHO--Adams also said that he worked as everything from a chicken shed cleaner to a bodyguard. In 1978 he wrote what many still consider his best work, the science fictional satire that became the original BBC radio series, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE....The record album of that first series, as well as the second series, won awards from the British Science Fiction Association in 1979, 1980, and 1981. Following THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE... radio series, Adams adapted his scripts and produced the first novel of what was originally intended as a trilogy, though it eventually stretched to five novels and a short story. With the publication of the fourth book in the "trilogy," and with his subject matter becoming simultaneously more environmentally aware and much darker in tone, Adams arrived at two important themes of his later work--ecological concern and a more pervasive sense of pessimism. He explores the first theme in his non-fiction account--co-written with Mark Carwardine--of traveling to see the last surviving members of various endangered animal species around the world. The second theme, addressed in the Dirk Gently series, delved more fully into the defects of the human condition, although a sense of comedy remained. Adams returned to finish up the Hitchhiker trilogy with a final, fifth volume. Following that, Adams, a longtime fan of Macintosh computers, developed several CD-ROM games, based both on his own published novels and on original ideas--one of the latter, STARSHIP TITANIC, was novelized by Adams's friend, Monty Python co-founder Terry Jones. Adams married Jane Belson on November 25, 1991 and the couple had a daughter, Polly Jane--nicknamed "Rocket"--on June 22, 1994. He died of a heart attack on May 11, 2001, only two days after Asteroid 18610 (which had been discovered in 1998) was officially named Arthurdent, in honor of the main character in THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.